Updated 2025-07-26:
I like this observation from Matt Yglesisas at Slow Boring, on what he sees as the likely impact of AI, which I think largely aligns with mine.
Some work will be automated away, but other work won’t be. Maybe because of technical limitations, but also because I think it’s a category error to ask whether AI will be able to play pro basketball or play a live violin concerto. Modern Americans live quite far from subsistence levels, so people pay money for a lot of services that are patently unnecessary because we think they’re fun or prestigious. The popularity of any of these activities might collapse under pressure from new AI-generated content, but it also might not, and the rewards to being great at a currently obscure sport like water polo or lacrosse might explode.
Yes, I’ve seen Humans Need Not Apply1, but I am still not as pessimistic as Grey, even though large-language models have become a (very useful!) thing in the meantime. I’ll change my mind if the situation warrants it, but for now…so far, so good.
An artificial super-intelligence would be an obvious concern — I mean how could us simpletons keep it from enslaving us all (whether iRobot-style or Wall•E-style). But I’m not worried about super-intelligence because the existing crop of AIs — LLMs in particular — aren’t intelligent at all, much less super. But more on intelligence another time.
Another obvious concern (the one from the video) is robots taking more physical jobs, which of course does not require super-intelligence. AI2 and Robots are replacing humans in some jobs, but they will also create/enable new jobs, and as long as there’s a class of tasks where humans have a comparative advantage this technological revolution seems likely to play out like all the rest (e.g., agriculture, printing, steam, computation): disruptive, society-shaping, likely productivity- and welfare-enhancing, and ultimately non-existential. (Meaning, I don’t dismiss that huge changes are coming; I just think we need the perspective that humanity has worked through challenges like this before, so we should should go forth with sanguinity, not despair).
That’s why this Construction Physics post about Robot Dexterity gave me optimism: it’s a second category of work that: (1) Robots suck at, and (2) many humans genuinely enjoy (not these specific tasks of course). (The first is those that require intelligence). Here’s the list, which is delightful in its specificity and an opportunity to wonder at the capabilities of humans. (I mean think about it; can anything but a human do any of these? Perhaps a primate can peel an orange?)
- Put on a pair of latex gloves
- Tie two pieces of string together in a tight knot, then untie the knot
- Turn to a specific page in a book
- Pull a specific object, and only that object, out of a pocket in a pair of jeans
- Bait a fishhook with a worm
- Open a childproof medicine bottle, and pour out two (and only two) pills
- Make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, starting with an unopened bag of bread and unopened jars of peanut butter and jelly
- Act as the dealer in a poker game (shuffling the cards, dealing them out, gathering them back up when the hand is over)
- Assemble a mechanical watch
- Peel a piece of scotch tape off of something
- Braid hair
- Roll a small lump of playdough into three smaller balls
- Peel an orange
- Score a point in ladder golf
- Replace an electrical outlet in a wall with a new one
- Do a cat’s cradle with a yo-yo
- Put together a plastic model, including removing the parts from the plastic runners
- Squeeze a small amount of toothpaste onto a toothbrush from a mostly empty tube
- Start a new roll of toilet paper without ripping the first sheet
- Open a ziplock bag of rice, pull out a single grain, then reseal the bag
- Put on a necklace with a clasp
An army of super-intelligent, dexterous robots would be concerning. I’m not holding my breath.